Posts filed under ‘Personal’
People at libraries should be more literate
Okay, maybe that title’s kinda mean. I apologize.
If you know me pretty well or follow me on Twitter or DailyBooth, you’ve probably noticed that I visit the library a lot. If I talk to you regularly, you probably know the type of people I run into at the library. I’m flattered that somebody would go out of his way to write me a note and/or talk to me. Really. But I always laugh at the type of people that seem interested in me. I know this isn’t the first I’ve talked of this, but it gives me something to write about and maybe have a little laugh at. I don’t know if I feel bad for making fun of these guys or not. Anyway, I wanted to talk about two people that have confronted me when I’ve been at the library.
Library guy number one. If you haven’t seen this video, go watch it now because I don’t wanna type the story. The guy I’m talking about in that video is the same one I’m referring to below.
Since this guy was so eager to contact me on MySpace, I decided to take a look at his profile when I got home that day. Even though a lot of people have totally different identities on MySpace than they do in real life, you do learn a lot about them through their profiles. Some of them are just a total lolfest. Here are some things I found on this library creeper’s profile:
This guy's name is Johnny and he lives in two places. Probably leading a double life. His headline makes me wonder who this so-called Jason is and what he's got to do with natural organic hair products. Maybe it's his alter-ego. I'm not sure which one lives where, though. Don't worry, Johnny. Your secret's safe with us.
I scrolled down a bit and found out that yes, he will. Only me. Zero Nine Two Two. Perhaps he shares a birthday with Tom Felton.
That's his About Me. If you're too lazy to click and read it, just know that the first and most important thing he wants you to know about him are his birthday (which is already in his URL), and the fact that he can type really fast without looking at the keyboard. He also lets us know that he lives with his grandmother and tells us who lived in the back of his residence and when they moved out. He goes on to inform us that he has soft hands and juicy lips and gives us a very concise history of his parents' relationship. After that, there's some sort of fragment saying "HONDA-CRV 2009." The end. Thank you, Johnny...or should I say Jason? I feel very enlightened.
This is his favorite book. It's pretty safe to assume he went to a midnight release party when its sequel, "More Natural 'Cures' Revealed," was released. Maybe he even got to meet Kevin Trudeau himself there!
Library guy number two. I was about to sit down and read Little Brother on my netbook when I made eye contact with a guy sitting a few feet away from me. He wasn’t hideously ugly, nor supre cute. Just kinda meh. He looked like he was doing some sort of math or science work. I dunno. All I know is he had a calculator on him. About two hours after I got there, I decided I wanted to go home, so I packed my stuff and headed outside. I stopped by this tiny store outside the library where they sell cheap books that no one wants any more to see if I found anything interesting. When I was in there, I noticed that guy look towards my direction and walk outside. He seemed to be stalling. As I walked outside, he tapped me on the shoulder, and said “for you.” He handed this note and walked back inside:
I was about to take every sentence in that letter and be my stupid/smartass/sarcastic self analyzing that shit... but I'm feeling too lazy. Just take a look at it and see for yourself.
Sucks. When he tapped my shoulder, I was thinking “yay. this guy’s gonna talk to me.” Then I heard the accent he said “for you” with and was skeptical about him. Some people have thick accents but are still decent with language, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. When I opened the letter I had a total FML moment. Hahaha. I’m such a bad person. And to think I’m always complaining about how nobody likes or notices me. Like my mom always tell me, soy pobre pero delicada! (I’m poor but delicate. I guess that saying is a cousin to the English saying “beggars can’t be choosers.”)
Question: If I e-mail this guy back (for the lulz), what should I say? Leave a comment!
Before I forget everything I did, I’ll blog about it.
I could easily just break each day up into one blog and pretend I posted it on the day that it happened, but fuck it. I’ll do this thing again where I label the day and shit.
Thursday: Typical summer session day. Went to class, took notes, etc. I got home, went online for a while and then got something to eat. When I came back on the computer, I refreshed Twitter found out Michael Jackson had died. That sucks, I thought. I also thought WTF? I leave the internet for like 15 minutes and Michael Jackson dies?! Wack. There were many grieving, and many making way-too-soon jokes about it. I guess I’ll post my view on it now. As a person in general, he did a lot of fishy things. All those accusations of molestation and shit, and the whole thing where he was swinging a baby from the window and who knows what else. What the fuck was that all about? Anyway… he was an amazing performer and pop culture icon. He was the king of fucking pop! I would even always say when there was a dispute about what song should be played that “you can never go wrong with Michael Jackson.” Ever. RIPMJ♥
Friday: Mom woke me up so I could start cleaning the house in case people came over. Well, a few rooms in it anyway. After that, I went to this salon nearby with my mom to check out hairstyles and stuff for Chava’s wedding. I didn’t find one that suited me, but whatever. At least my mom did. I kinda already knew how I wanted my hair to be anyway. Not so long after that, I went to get my nails done at this nail/spa place nearby. Gosh, I love where I live. All these places are just walking distance from my house. Anyway, Nery walked into the place when I was getting my nails done and I left with her when I was done, since we had already planned on going to the movies that day. We picked up Danny, then met up with Rick and his sisters in Hollywood. We watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen at the Arclight. Movie-wise, it was okay I guess. Not the best movie in the world, but not as boring as others said it was. I mostly liked the effects and all that shit. It was pretty tight.
Saturday: I woke up at 6:30 ’cause my mother and I had appointments at the hair salon at 7am. Gosh, I looked so dead when I got there. Got my hair and make-up done there. Not much to say about that. After that, I pretty much just waited ’til it was time to get ready for Chava’s wedding.
We got to the church with a lot of time to spare. The ceremony itself was nice. Apparently the minister was a family friend or something and they surprised Cristina by having him marry her. My tio Ruben was singing with his group during the mass. That was cool too. Angie, Jay, and two of Cristina’s family members did some of the readings, and the minister joked a lot. It was cool.
The reception was fun too. My cousins from my dad’s side seemed to have a lot of fun, it was cute to watch. The food was spicy and the cake kicked ass. Woot. Also, they had these really cool liquor things on the table with Cristina and Chava’s names on them that everyone liked and many took home:
As for me, I was walking in heels the whole day for the first time. Boy, I sucked at it. Hahahaha. The day was fun, though. Congrats big brother and new sister in law!
Sunday: Despite the fact that the previous day had been long and left me a bit exhausted, I woke up early to help my mother with the food and stuff because people came over. I made two salads. I swear, that’s all mom ever makes me do when she tells me to help her cook. I just make salads. Sometimes rice too. Meh, I don’t mind. Anyway, a lot of family members came over for lunch or whatever. We had birria and chicken. At one point, mostly all the dudes and kids were in my living room watching the USA vs. Brazil soccer game. It looked something like this (except less blurry):
Later on, I went to the beach and Hollywood with my cousins from Colorado. It wasn’t as fun as I would’ve wanted it to be, but still pretty cool. It’s nice to get out of the house and go somewhere with people you don’t see very often.
Monday: I woke up thinking something along the lines of Awesome, History class got cancelled today. That means I only have one class! When I arrived to my Health class, though, I came to find that that class had also been canceled. I love it when that happens, even though there’s also the whole thought process I go through where I realize I could’ve just stayed home and not missed a thing. Hahaha. I stayed at school for a bit ’cause Zack texted me that his Sociology class got cancelled, so we hung out after he got out of his first class. We ate at Thai House (no surprise there). He threw up. We brushed our teeth. We met up with Dan. I swear, I don’t know if I can fully get into the habit of just saying ‘Dan.’ I actually typed ‘Daniel’ and then backspaced because I realized that if I wrote ‘Zack’ instead of ‘Zachary’ then I should write ‘Dan’ instead of ‘Daniel.’ Anyway… we went to Pasadena, just for the hell of it. It was pretty fun. Like usual, we went to Barnes & Noble, the Apple Store, Urban Outfitters, and a few other shops. Is it proper to call them shops? Or are they stores? Because when I call them shops, I picture like, more of a local family-owned little store. I felt kinda bad, though ’cause we kept physically hurting Dan. Pobresito.
Today is tuesday the 30th. Crap, that means I can’t use my TAP card tomorrow. I should renew that shit. Too bad I have no cash and don’t wanna use my own money.
Update — I actually came back to finish this blog because… I dunno what happened, but I never got a chance to finish. It is now wednesday. Boy, I’m a lagger. I guess I might as well let you know that I finished reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower today.
Also, I didn’t bother to proofread this. Sorry for the mistakes.
What I’ve been up to, I guess.
I haven’t posted a real blog since June 11th, so I figured I’d do an update right now. I actually have two blogs with actual topics that I’m thinking of writing sometime this week or next. Most likely next week because this one has been kinda busy (nevermind me having taken a two-hour nap today) and it’s only gonna get worse.
What have I been doing recently? Pretty much, mornings consist of me going to my summer classes. I’m taking Principles of Healthful Living (Health 11) and History of the Great Religions (History 7). They’re both really easy. Health tests are open-book for the first ten minutes or so and history quizzes are five questions every day. If I don’t pass both classes with A’s… then… I’m an idiot. Nah, not really. It probably just means I got really lazy at one point.
After class, I’ve either been 1. eating with Zack 2. hanging out with Luis or 3. going home and either a. eating and going online or b. eating and reading. Right now, I’m reading Looking for Alaska by John Green. (You might’ve figured out I got the arrangement of the first sentence in this paragraph from that book. Haha.) It arrived in the mail yesterday and I’ll probably finish it tonight. I’ll write a little review or something later, though.
Also, my brother Chava’s getting married in like three days! Holy shit. That’s pretty much the reason I doubt I’ll have time for writing blogs this week and weekend. That and I’ve been spending less and less time online recently. I’ve also been seeing people in real life a lot less. I don’t even know how I managed to do that.
Anyway, I’m gonna go finish reading Looking for Alaska now. x.
The reason I can’t fall asleep right now
It was about 8 or 9pm when I was watching the Garfield High School Marching band rehearsing and doing a few final runs of their field show,. I was there because I’d gotten bored at home. They weren’t rehearsing at Garfield like they normally did, though. They were at this park with a steep hill. I was on top of the hill, and they were running sets at the bottom. I had a perfect center view. Also, Vincent Lopez met up with me a few minutes after that and we watched the band together for a bit, just making fun of stuff they would do wrong and whatnot. Apparently, they had a Vicente Fernandez themed field show. I thought it was pretty chunti, but then figured oh, right. It’s Garfield. (as if that justifies anything?) Actually, their opener was the same opener they performed in 2008, but the rest of the songs were Vicente Fernandez.
Finally, they do their last full run of the show. It started off okay, but then I noticed some problems with the drumline. I guess the whole ensemble just tore at one point and everything started to get weird, timing and drill wise , with the drums. The bass line was playing what would’ve been an awesome solo if they were on tempo and not crashing into each other. Laura Tomas was playing bottom bass, and I noticed she got hurt pretty bad because she got hit by 6th bass (I guess Joe decided to have a bass line of 7 that year). The show went on, but she stepped off the field because couldn’t keep going. She walked up to the top of the hill, sweaty and crying. Then I noticed the drum had hit her so hard in the head that she was bleeding. I turned away because I hate looking at blood.
I continued to watch the rest of the field show and then realized how cold it was. I turned around to ask Vinnie and Laura if they were cold, but they weren’t there anymore. Then I looked down and saw Vincent laying on the floor in a pair of torn up briefs, super sweaty and beat-up-looking. I freaked out, gasped and wondered what happened and why I didn’t notice it. Then I saw Laura in pretty much the same condition, except she was wearing clothes that were ripped up and had blood all over them. I screamed, cried, and fell to the ground. I wanted to get back up and tell someone, but I was still crying and freaking out. I began to crawl my way up, but then my had touched something cold and mushy. When I looked at my hands, they were covered in blood, so I cried even louder because I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Then I noticed that the mushy thing my hand touched was a slimy, severed human leg. I looked around and there were several bodies and body parts similar to that one. They were all pale, and the ones with faces looked restless. They reminded me of those images we see from the Holocaust, after they haven’t been fed and put to work and are practically just skin and bones… except they were slimy/sweaty looking and there was blood splattered everywhere on and around them.
Needless to say, I freaked out and cried even more about this. It got to the point where I couldn’t even scream anymore and just woke up gasping for air.
I didn’t know what the hell to do, but I did not want to go back to sleep. I called Zack, but I just woke him up and then he went back to sleep. Then I texted my Twitter and Facebook accounts to update my status about that dream and how I didn’t wanna go back to sleep. I called Luis and stayed on the line with him for a few minutes.
Then I guess I got over it and tried to go back to sleep. (I had that dream at about 3:3oam, btw). Problem was, I was no longer sleepy. Sooo, I kinda cleaned my room, put away some clothes, went to the bathroom, watched two or three YouTube videos, and now I’m sitting here writing about it.
It’s almost six in the morning now, and I can hear the birds tweeting. I wonder if they can hear me tweet when I do it too. (Lame joke, I know.)
I hate mechanical mice
I normally use a cordless optical mouse when I’m on my desktop computer. (As opposed to using a trackpad, like on my netbook.) But… battery on my computer mouse ran out of juice (mmmm, juice) a few days ago. My brother and I have both been too lazy to get off our asses and buy batteries to replace them, so we’re stuck with with a mechanical mouse for the time being. (The kind with the little ball at the bottom and everything.) It’s not even a USB mouse. It’s the type you connect to one of those millions of mysterious holes in the back of your tower. This thing is ancient! I’ve used a lot of computer mice in my day, but this one is just starting to piss me off. It makes me really glad I know my survival keyboard shortcuts. This mouse never moves where I want it to and the ball just decides to stop wanting to move sometimes. Photoshopping with is got me angry. Sometimes I have to press it down really hard in order for the cursor to go where I want it to that the mouse pad itself moves with the mouse. My optical mouse was so perfect and never made my right wrist hurt the way this one does. It’s so frusturating. Argh.
...and by 'thing' i actually mean 'symbol.' lmao.
Really, you never know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. I miss my optical mouse. First thing tomorrow morning, I’m gonna buy some batteries for it.
About time the semester’s over!
As those of you who know h0w I am by now probably know, I hate community college. I am soooooooooooo (that’s right, I put in extra o’s for emphasis) glad the fall semester is finally over. Is it just me, or do semesters just drag along really slow? It never felt this way during the winter session. I hope I don’t hate school as much during summer either. Even though I’m still taking classes in the summer, I can’t help but be glad to know that this semester is finally behind me. It was such a drag most of the time. I only wish I did good in the math class I had and never needed a reason to drop it. I feel so behind now, still having to take remedial math classes. FML.
On a brighter note, I walked out of my English final in a really good mood. I don’t think I did as well on my in-class essay as I’ve done on others, but that’s okay. As soon as I turned in the in-class final essay, Dr. Norton gave me back my previous two essays. One of them was an in-class essay written in a Green Book, and the other one was one of those fancy typed-up ones in MLA format. I looked through the essay I wrote in the Green Book and read the little notes he’d written on it. It made me laugh that he put a happy face next to something I’d written. Then I reached the last page, where he wrote at the bottom “Great job, Reyna — Thanks!” followed by my grade. I noticed that he always writes “thanks” on essays and wonder what he thanks his students for. Is he thanking us for doing the assignment? ‘Cause if he is… then boy, he must have some really bad students. Is he thanking me specifically for doing good? Actually, he wrote “thanks for all your work on this paper” once. I guess he is thanking us for doing the assignment. Interesting. I guess I’d thank my students too. The mere fact that they chose to go on with their education says a lot about them… ANYWAY! I totally went off on a tangent.
Okay, back on topic… I looked through the pages of the other essay he returned (the one that was typed and all that jazz) and noticed there weren’t many markings on it. I turned to the last page to get a look at my grade, but there was nothing. I looked at the back of every page, and all the little corners and margins. Still no grade. I went up to Norton’s desk and asked if he graded my paper. He looked at it and then told me “Oh, it’s because I wanted to ask you…” then he wrote on my paper “Would you mind emailing this to me as an attachment so I could use it for future 101 classes?” I was confused for about half a second because I thought it said “lol” and not “101″ (as in English 101). Yes, only Reyna would make that mistake. Then I was like, oh! sure! when I realized he actually meant that I did so well on the essay that he wanted to use it as a sample. It was awesome! Lmao. Then he was like “Yeah… because your grade is” and then he wrote on my paper “A+” I was so happy! It totally made my day… as if the fact that it was the last day of the semester hadn’t already lifted my spirits.
Super quick blog before I begin my essay
Not much to say, really. Finals week sucks. I think I did good on my final for Journalism 105 (mass communications). It was just a scantron thing and a few essay questions. Journalism 101 was fairly easy… I think. Apparently I’m getting a B or C in that class. I didn’t think I did that bad during the semester. I guess I was wrong. I’m not sure how I did on my Geography final, though. Some I knew the answer to right away, while others I had to sit there and think about. I hope I did okay, though.
Yesterday was pretty fun. Went to the movies with Zachary and Daniel. We watched Drag Me to Hell and Terminator Salvation. Drag Me to Hell Made me laugh so much. Talking goats FTW! I’m very jealous of Alison Lohman. She had blonde hair with dark eyebrows, a face that isn’t very skinny, small lips, tiny boobs, but she still looked beautiful! Gosh! Anyway… Terminator would’ve probably been cooler if I’d seen the movies more recently… or at least remembered the one I saw. Hahaha.
In other news… I am a total lesbo. Just kidding. My online friend Enmanuel made a little collab video with me and some other online friends: Jason, Athina, and Veronica. I don’t know if you’ll find it funny or not. It has a few inside jokes. But I rofl’d. Here it is:
Also, I’m gonna fix the categories section of my blog once I’m done with finals. I don’t really have the time to sort everything out right now.
LACCD Cancelling Summer Classes
So, the community college district over here is getting all these budget cuts. They decided to cancel all summer sessions that start after June 1st. I was planning on taking four classes this summer, now I can only take two. Totally lame. Also, I think other forms of financial aid (EOP&S, Cal Grants, etc.) are gonna be offering less now.
I’ve never really been much of an activist… even when it comes to something that directly affects me. But I do like to spread the word about issues around me sometimes. I don’t have much time to blog about this because I have stuff for finals to work on all this week. Otherwise, this would be a pretty long post… but I’ll share some links and whatnot for those of you interested in doing something about it.
Information: http://www.laccd.edu/news/documents/LACCD_Summer_Cancellation_2009.pdf
Also, there will be a protest at Trade Tech — Information on that is here: http://laeastside.com/2009/06/community-college-and-cut-backs-protest-230-today-trade-tech/
Let’s hope this doesn’t cause me to be at ELAC longer than I had planned :/
In regards to my “You know how I know you’re Mexican?” video…
A lot of you already saw my most recent YouTube video. (If you haven’t, click here and watch it before reading the rest of this post.)
I was in a good mood, so I decided to make a fun video. And I did have fun making it. I even asked my dad for ideas, and he gave me a few. He found it funny that I would talk about common occurrences within our family and culture.
Somebody with a similar ethnic background as mine commented on it asking why I would “make a video with that many degrading comments.” They also said that a lot of the situations I mentioned applied to many other hispanics/latinos and that not all of them are Mexican. Of course I know they’re not all Mexican. I used the word Mexican because it is the one that applied to me and the community I grew up in. Of course, there are Central Americans and people of other nationalities in the area too, but I hate having to sound so politically correct sometimes. It’s like “you know what I mean! jeeze!” The person also said that calling them all Mexicans was degrading. I do it for the lulz, not for the respect. People shouldn’t think something like the fact that I didn’t make a conscious effort to be PC is demeaning and just learn to tolerate it.
Maybe it’s just the way I grew up, though. It used to bother me too when people would say little things like those, whether it was in regards to a certain ethnicity, activity, book series, or anything. Then I learned to get over it because really, what’s the point of trying to change it? People will say what they say and think what they think. If they’re not part of it, it shouldn’t really make a difference. After all, I know who I am and how I am perceived by others. That was the reason I made the video to begin with. To have some fun with what society thinks of people like me (Mexicans… or hispanics/chicanos/latinos).
But not everyone’s the same. Maybe the person was at one point given a bunch of crap for who/what he is, and finds little generalizations like those insulting. Perhaps he has a lot of pride in who he is and where he came from. If that’s the case, I still don’t see why one would feel so strongly about little corrections. I don’t know how they see it as something demeaning. I dunno about you guys, but I think that if you can’t look at yourself and the person you are without finding something funny, then there’s something wrong with you.
Perhaps this is because I was made fun of a lot during elementary and middle school. Mostly middle school. It was such a hellhole. I hated the people there. I’m not gonna lie, I did cry about the things they told me sometimes. After a few years, I decided that I was stupid for caring so much about the crap people back would give me. They did it for the laughs, and I was the only one that wasn’t laughing because it was at my expense. I learned to have this mentality when people made fun of me where instead of feeling crappy about it, I would just think something like “haha, that’s true.” I’d rather laugh at the person I am than feel crappy about it. Sure, I always bitch about how I’m fat or how ugly my teeth are, but fuck. I know that if I really wanted to change that much, I would make a greater effort.
I think that he and I just see things differently because we grew up in very different communities. Anyone who went to Garfield High School could probably just laugh at the things I said or say something like “omg, I do that too!” Let’s face it, a lot of us fit the stereotypes whether we want to or not. And because we as a whole can relate to them, we don’t find it all that insulting.
A lot of people get the idea that I’m not proud of who I am and where I came from because I make so many jokes about it. Of course I’m proud! My parents didn’t bust their asses off to come to the states for nothing. They didn’t have much money back in the day, and decided to risk a lot to make a better life for their their family. I have no idea what motivated them to go through so much crap, but I definitely respect them for it. I love it in the states. I’m glad my family has come a long way (both literally and metaphorically). I make little jokes and comments about beaners because I like to laugh. In fact, I can laugh about a lot of things that people don’t usually find funny. As negative a person as I can be, I know that laughter can always make me feel better about a situation.
